Does it seem like it takes forever to close new business deals? You’re running strong campaigns, generating plenty of leads, seeing a flurry of sales activity.
But even though your sales reps are consistently following up, prospects just aren’t ready to buy. Your sales cycle used to be 4 weeks, but now it’s 6, 8 or even twelve. And the longer it gets, the harder it is to hit your goals.
As a marketer or executive, how can you solve this problem? Do your sales reps need some training on their closing techniques? Probably – after all, most reps can refresh & improve to some degree.
But it would be a mistake to just assume the problem is their closing skills. Even the best closers can face lengthening sales cycles.
Instead, take a step back and look at the big picture. There are three areas where your company can potentially improve:
- Quality of the leads that enter your sales process. Are they truly qualified?
- How well you execute the steps in your sales process. How strong are the materials, messages and process you follow to guide your prospects to a decision?
- Addressing the reasons that prospects don’t buy – your value proposition, brand and pricing.
What’s the best way to evaluate which areas are most important? Get your sales and marketing teams together to constructively identify where you can collectively improve.
These types of meetings often create fireworks. Sales will typically gripe that leads aren’t qualified. Marketing will counter that sales doesn’t execute well or use the materials they create. Keep the focus on overall improvement, not on placing blame. After all, sales and marketing share a common goal – to generate profitable revenue and happy customers. And if you’re spending time pointing fingers, you’re wasting valuable time and energy.
Tomorrow we’ll provide some tips for improving item #1, the quality of the leads you’re putting into your pipeline. Then we’ll follow up with posts about #2 and #3.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
KISS… I like that principle too!!
Though you have explained it quite simply, I would suggest that we need to get to the bottom of the real reason why th sales cycle is indeed lengthening!! When doesone really take notice of this fact?? Is it an automatic process whe you compare the YTD of sales figures and do the maths of this date this year v/s this date last year??? I think these areas need to be more elaborate;ly covered.
Also getting the Marketing and Sales tems together is one of the most potentially dangerous tasks as you have rightly pointed out. I have sedom noticed anything really gained out of it though. What seriously needs to be done is to push this sales cycle length in a pure sales meet that is of course attended by the HoM. Driving a concept through a sales team is not an easy task as these are the guys who are skilled negotiators and the first face to the customer. biggest worry: they are aware of it!! Please do cover up some more grounds in terms of the why’s and how so tha the process of doing an introspection for a person who reads this would be a lot more inspiring. This is particularly so because any target oriented sales guy will surely reap a lot of knowledge from your article.
{ 3 trackbacks }